Unexpected Journeys
by hushsaidlyra
Summary: Begins the morning following Lucy calling off her engagement to Cecil, when Freddy accompanies Cecil to the train station. Cecil and Freddy have just spoken with Mr. Beebe, who keeps Cecil's matches, which Freddy runs back for. Mr. Beebe's thoughts, just before the first chapter is set, is that Windy Corner is 'cut off for ever from Cecil's pretentious world.'
1. Chapter 1

'Here,' said Freddy, as he re-entered the carriage, passing the retrieved matches to Cecil. Cecil's matches returned, the reluctant horse was urged on, and the victoria continued along the road. The meeting with Mr Beebe had done little to relieve the awkwardness between its occupants; careful, stilted conversation only occasionally interrupted the silence. They were both careful to avoid mentioning the failed engagement, and having decided that Greece was not for their lot, there was not much to say about that subject either.

Freddy, searching for a neutral topic worthy of remark, arrived at, 'Mr Beebe's a good sort'.

'Yes', said Cecil, thinking of Mr Beebe's analogy in which Lucy – as a kite – had soared away into the sky. The clergyman would probably think that she had been delivered.

His response left Freddy with a nervous desire to continue speaking. It persisted as he leant his forehead against the edge of the window, staring moodily at the trees passing along the roadside.

'It'll be strange, you not being at Windy Corner.' He said finally.

Cecil felt a sudden rush of annoyance. Last night any sense that Lucy had behaved unfairly had been softened by gratitude, and he found himself making up for it now; the Honeychurches had a confounded habit of saying one thing when they in fact felt something quite different. 'Indeed?' he said, 'I expected you would feel rather relieved.' He saw the expression on Freddy's face. 'I recall you rather disliked me.'

Freddy reddened. 'I never said I disliked you,' he said, and blushed more deeply as he was reminded of what he had said. 'Well-I said I didn't want you as a brother-in-law—' He recalled the way Cecil had more or less made him admit this. Why did the man insist on putting one in impossible situations? He continued more forcefully, 'And I don't see why I shouldn't say it, when it's true and when you asked. I said I didn't mind if you married her but you would keep pushing me for an answer.'

'And I suppose you did not want me as a brother-in-law for the same reasons that Lucy did not want me for a husband?'

'I expect so.' Freddy said defensively.

'Do you _know_ why Lucy ended the engagement?'

There it was again, the tiresome checkmating. Not only that, Cecil was forcing him to acknowledge to himself the fact that Lucy had not actually told him why she had broken the engagement off—that lately they had begun to grow apart, and that she no longer told him everything as she used to. Freddy struggled for a moment before saying, 'Not exactly, no.'

Cecil was silent. Freddy was thinking that the journey had already been a good deal worse than he had expected when Cecil made a sound like a half-stifled laugh, and he looked up. 'I'll tell you.' Cecil said and sighed, passing a hand over his forehead. 'Why not? She said-at first she said it was because I wouldn't play tennis, with you.' He glanced momentarily at Freddy as he spoke. 'But then she explained that afternoon was only the last straw. She said she had been feeling this way for weeks; that I didn't want her to have her own thoughts and feelings; that I was always protecting her; that I wouldn't let her be herself.'

'Well I should say she was right!' interrupted Freddy.

Cecil didn't reply. He was gazing out of the Victoria window, seeming to talk to himself as much as to Freddy. 'She said I was alright—so long as I kept myself to art and books and music, but when it came to people—well, I don't know quite what she would have said. She said I am the sort who can't know anyone intimately.' He faltered. 'Perhaps she's right. No, she is right. I only mean, perhaps it will always be true, but perhaps I can improve. It was a shock, to hear her speak like that. She has thoughts and depths of insight which I never knew. I just wish—God—I just don't—' He stopped, seeming to check himself, and shook his head. 'No,' he continued quietly. 'I can only hope she didn't show me what I am too late.'

Freddy turned his gaze to the window and stared determinedly out at the thickly leafed trees passing by the carriage. The forest looked shadowy and cool below; above, the sunlight was dancing through the uppermost branches. Freddy huffed a sigh. 'I'm sorry, old chap.' He said finally, feeling clumsy. Cecil was about to say something in reply when the carriage stopped and, turning to look again out of the window, Freddy saw the red brickwork of the station. He made to get out and sensed Cecil's hand at his arm.

'I know we didn't exactly hit it off,' Cecil said. A wry smile flitted briefly over his mouth. 'I wish you the very best.' Freddy, in response, grasped Cecil's hand rather more roughly than he knew Cecil would feel necessary, and then compounded the situation by suddenly wrapping his arms around Cecil and embracing him. He felt Cecil tense and his hands awkwardly returned the embrace only after a hesitation, and in a way which suggested that this would be brief. Feeling foolish, Freddy released him and found their faces close together.

Then Cecil kissed him.

It was a dry-lipped kiss; really he just brushed his lips against Freddy's for a split second before moving away as though they were burning. They stared at each other. Cecil's face bore an expression of panic, gazing at Freddy as if seeing him for the first time.

'You'd better not miss your train.' Freddy said after a moment, dry-mouthed. 'I—I'll write or—something.' Cecil got out of the carriage. Freddy watched him raise a hand in recognition to Powell and then walk away with quick strides, his case in one hand, the other in his coat pocket. Freddy puffed out his bottom lip and blew upward so that his fringe ruffled. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and sat lower in the seat, feeling a mess of confusing emotions, his heart beat sickeningly fast in his chest. He pushed all thoughts from his mind; later – he would think later. Instead he watched the passing scenery, as the carriage drove away from the station and bumpily over the road towards Windy Corner.


	2. Chapter 2

Cecil strode into the train station, his heart fluttering wildly, panicked thoughts circling uselessly in his brain. _What had he been thinking? And with Freddy Honeychurch? _He found the platform, hands shaking as he proffered his ticket. _What had possessed him? _He thought, over and over, that he had not known what he was doing, as if that could change anything. Freddy had said he would write.

Perhaps for once the boy would be able to keep something to himself. 'I'll write' hardly suggested disgust or outrage. Cecil promptly felt disgusted with himself; the last thing he wanted was Freddy's complicity. Had Freddy been someone who behaved with some modicum of decorum, Cecil might have counted on the incident never being spoken of, but with the younger Honeychurch who knew? To his credit... but could the promise to write be to Freddy's credit?

And then the memory of Freddy's lips - they had felt so soft against his - intruded abruptly, and he unconsciously raised his fingers to his mouth.

Mrs Vyse was first pleasantly—and then unpleasantly—surprised to see her son home sooner than she had expected. Cecil tolerated first his mother's persistent questioning of what exactly the Honeychurch girl had managed to find dissatisfactory in her son, and afterwards her righteous conviction that whatever it was, she would not be able to comprehend; they would have to accept that she, Lucy, was simply - as they had known before - rather below Cecil in terms of breeding and culture.

'But I had hoped,' said his mother, 'that we had rescued her in time. Well, clearly we were wrong. She could have done well - now she will not.' At which point Cecil, who had been holding his tongue and his nerves in check, burst out rather angrily,

'Lucy is the best woman I know, mother. I think she will do quite well enough without me.'

'Well,' said his mother, 'you will be the judge of that, Cecil, not I. But I hope for your sake you will not let some lasting attachment to her prevent you from seeing the qualities of other young women.'

Cecil sat for a while after his mother had left the room, his panic changed now to a feeling of cold emptiness deep in the pit of his stomach, staring into his teacup and thinking that he knew it had at least not prevented him from seeing the qualities of other young men.


	3. Chapter 3

The low afternoon sun filtered through the curtains of the Windy Corner dining room and cast a warm orange glow across the carpet, interspersed with shadow. It was here that the youngest Honeychurch was lying, stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head. He had been so for some time when his mother entered the room, requesting as she did so that Freddy 'please stop lying about on the carpet as if we are without chairs.' Freddy had read _Middlemarch_, however, and would not.

His interrupted train of thought had ended with him wondering why there were no answers to his important questions. He thought there should always be answers, even if they turned up in unexpected ways.

But perhaps the universe was listening to his dilemmas after all, because his mother, having sat for a while with an air of intention, announced,

'Dear, what do you think of me writing to Cecil?'

Freddy started slightly and felt as if his insides had leapt up and then plummeted in quick succession. His mother was seated behind him on the sofa, so still on the floor he craned his head backwards to look at her upside down, and said,

'Why do you want to write to Cecil?'

'Well dear,' said his mother, 'you know he really was ever so attached to Lucy. I don't want to be disloyal to dear Lucy, of course, but the way she called off the engagement, so suddenly without any warning, I imagine he must be heartbroken, and I wouldn't wish him to think that we are not thinking of him.' She waited a moment then prompted, 'What do you think, dear?' But no answer was forthcoming from Freddy, so she continued helpfully, 'Perhaps it will seem a little odd if I write to him.'

The final sentence was not quite a question, nor quite a statement. It was a difficult thing to ignore.

His mother, thought Freddy, had a fine mastery of the subtleties of persuasion; quite clearly she wished him to write to Cecil, and if he did not she would think he was unhelpful, and unkind. Freddy lay and felt that he was in turmoil. But wasn't this what he wanted anyway; a respectable excuse to write to Cecil?

His mother's hand hovered over the writing materials she had begun to lay on the table.

'I'll see how he's getting on, mother, shall I?' Said Freddy manfully, rising from the floor with a sigh and stuffing his hands into his pockets to saunter over to the table.

'Ah, I think perhaps it would be better coming from you dear.' Said his mother. She got up and began to fuss about the room.

Freddy ran his hands through his hair so that it was ruffled and bit the end of the pen, staring at the blank paper in front of him and glancing up at his mother, wondering how he could be expected to compose a letter - which even without the present circumstances would not have been easy to write - when his mother was making so much unnecessary noise. At last he flung down the pen, saying,

'I'll think what it's best to say and write later,' and pushing the curtains covering the French windows apart, tripped out into the garden.


End file.
